Common Grace Is Not Enough

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Preacher: Ross Macdonald Scripture: Genesis 36:1-43

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Well, I know this is the chapter everyone's been waiting for ever since we began our study of Genesis.
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Of course, this is not something that a preacher is always looking forward to preach, a long list of rather difficult cumbersome names.
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But as our brother alluded to, there are some riches to be had here in Genesis 36.
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We're considering the Toledot of Esau. Remember this word Toledot, or generations, or sometimes translated genealogy, has been the structural backbone of the book of Genesis.
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We're now at the second to last of these Toledot, of these genealogies, with the genealogy of Esau.
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Now, approaching our passage this morning, I almost wanted to do what the 19th century expositor
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C .H. McIntosh does when in his chapter -by -chapter exposition of the book of Genesis, he writes only this for chapter 36.
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Genesis 36 gives us a catalog of Esau's sons with their various titles and localities.
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We shall not dwell on this, but we will pass on to a more fruitful and interesting section in the canon.
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Well, thanks McIntosh. Unfortunately, when we're expositing through the scriptures, we don't have the luxury always to say, we shall not dwell on this, as tempting as it may be.
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We shall dwell on this, at least for the next 45 minutes or so, this morning.
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Now, we're not going to do that in any great detail, and that's not just because of the complexity of the text, but also it's an opportunity for us, again, to take a step back and keep in mind, we want to, when possible, take a look at the bigger themes, the bigger movement of Genesis, looking more at the forest theologically than the trees.
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And Genesis 36 really gives us an organic way to do that, as I hope you'll see.
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Of course, many of us, when we begin our daily Bible reading plans at the start of every new year, with the goal of thoroughly reading every jot and tittle of scripture, every paragraph and every chapter of every book, we usually start out very well, and then we get to the table of nations in Genesis 10, we lose a little heart, and maybe you just make a second effort and you double down and you stretch all the way to Genesis 36, and it's the fatal blow.
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You lose heart, you just skim, you feel bad about it, you take a cold shower the next day, but you just can't help it.
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These names you've never heard of, you don't know how to pronounce half of them, you think that must have meant something for the ancients, but it doesn't mean much to me, and so I'll just go on to Joseph in Genesis 37.
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Can you name one fact about any of these people? Maybe there's an astute student of scripture here that could point out two or three things.
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Can you point out one thing about Edomite culture? One thing about the particularities of the hill country of Seir?
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It seems so foreign, so distant, so strange to us. We might be able to pick out a few familiar names or places, but for the most part when we encounter a genealogy like this, which is a very long, detailed, historical record of the rise of a nation and the descent of progeny from an important biblical figure, it shows a poor tendency we have to look back at history as though it were always simple and undefined, and only since the age of the smartphone or space exploration has history become more complex.
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Days in our way of reading blur into centuries, and every year seems like more of the same, and that is farming, farming, farming, farming, births and deaths, farming, farming, farming, but nothing's really changing.
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People aren't moving and shaking the earth, the nations aren't frothing, and of course we know by experience, we know just as human beings that that is not the case at all, that at every level of any society in recorded human history there's always complexity, always things, pressures, forces in motion, day by day, and here with Esau we're spanning over centuries in about three paragraphs.
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Now the Bible does not spell out details for us, but I just want that to be in the background of your mind.
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This is recorded for a reason. It's not only recorded here, it's repeated in 1 Chronicles 1. There's significance to this table of names, and I hope we'll see some of that significance together.
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Behind each name and underneath each line are the complexities of human life, human experiences, the sorrows and the heartbreaks, as well as the joys and the blessings, and all of that is contained within this genealogy.
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It's amazing how a bare -bones list of names can rob us of so much interesting detail.
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I was watching a documentary, this was some time ago, it was just a short, I believe it was a 60 -minute segment, about a family in Virginia, the
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Millers, and it was, I believe, an Air Force veteran who had a desire to purchase a home in rural
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Virginia. He knew that he had some family connections there, and he decided to find this little estate called
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Sharwood, and Sharwood was an old southern plantation, and it turns out that this man, through some interesting characters and relatives, they were able to do some genealogical research, and it turned out that he and his family, the
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Millers, were a descendant of the slave owners of Sharwood, and so he had bought and become an owner of the home that his ancestors had been enslaved in, and he now owned the quarters where they were enslaved.
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And he would walk over the graveyard, the unmarked graves, and one of the genealogical records that helped them understand that this was truly their ancestors' place was this unmarked list of slaves that were owned as property to C .M.
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Miller, and it was simply by numbers. They didn't actually have names, and so it was just numbers with a birth date, so you could have an age.
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This bare -bones list, but when you actually go into the quarters, and you see life lived, and you have relatives that have distant memories of what their great grandmother or great -grandfather was like, you realize how much color and detail and awe there is just in a list, in a bare list, and we have that before us in Genesis 36, the genealogy of Esau, who is
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Edom. Well, let's take a step back and consider where we are. We've come to the end of Isaac's Toledoth with chapter 35.
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Remember that the generation always goes to the offspring, so the whole Jacob cycle was technically the
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Toledoth of Isaac, the generation from Isaac, and so we're going to begin in chapter 37 the generations of Jacob, even though we'll be looking at who issues from Jacob, namely
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Joseph. That's how the Toledoth structure works. So we've just completed the Isaac cycle, as it were, with all of our time with Jacob, and we find the fulfillment in chapter 35 of Benjamin being born, and thus the completion of Jacob's household, with the twelfth tribe of Israel being born.
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Now he dwells in his father's place, quite literally in his home. He now bears the mantle of his grandfather's covenant.
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So it's quite natural for us now to move toward Esau's genealogy, since we've completed the household of Jacob, and we're about to transition to the cycle of Joseph.
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This is something we've seen whenever we've approached a transition like this in the Genesis narrative.
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The rejected line is always given their genealogy before the chosen line. I don't know if you recognize that, but it's true.
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We had the genealogy of Cain before we had the genealogy of Seth. We had the genealogy of Ishmael before we had the genealogy of Isaac, and here we have the genealogy of Esau before we have the genealogy of Jacob.
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Let's look at some details. I'm not going to go through this list exhaustively, but I just want to point out a few highlights.
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Remember that when Jacob left Peniel in chapter 32 to reconcile, we found Esau taking possession of the hill country of Seir.
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So not only do we have his actual blood descendants on this list, but we also have the people that he conquered, the people that he dispossessed.
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So look at verse 20. These were the sons of Seir the Horite who inhabited the land.
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What is this doing in Esau's genealogy? Well, these are the people that Esau took possession over. Esau settled in this area.
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He conquered it. He intermarried with the Horites and eventually he dispossessed them so that they became
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Edomites. They became those of Esau rather than Horites or Horite tribes.
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We find this, for instance, in Deuteronomy 2 verse 12. Esau dispossessed them and destroyed them and dwelt in their place.
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So embedded within this genealogy is the conqueror Esau, shedding blood and possessing the
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Horites as his own progeny. And then, of course, in Genesis 27, we saw
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Isaac's desire to bless Esau, and he did bless him. Remember that part of that blessing was for Esau to have the fruitfulness of the earth and the dew of heaven.
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And we have that really recorded in detail here in Genesis 36. This genealogy is, at first glance,
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God's fulfillment of his promise to Esau. It's also God's fulfillment of his promise to Rebekah.
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Remember in Genesis 25 when he said to her, two nations are in your womb, two peoples are in your inward parts, and they will be divided.
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And here we have that very clearly in the genealogy. These two nations have emerged and they are divided.
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But God blesses Esau. And there's no other way to say it. Genesis 36 is recording
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God's blessing on Esau. Insofar as he has many and mighty descendants, land and kings at issue from him, influence on the world with many treasures, many possessions, much more than he could have, so much, in fact, that he had to leave
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Canaan. And that is God's blessing, a la Genesis 27, upon Esau.
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Now, the legacy of Esau and Jacob living on as the nations of Edom and Israel is never forgotten in the
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Old Testament. They play an important role in the corporate life of Israel. The rivalry remains sharp throughout all of Israel's existence.
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In fact, they're on the record historically, really, until the destruction of the temple. After that, we really don't know what happened to the
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Edomites. They had different iterations, like the Edomians, from which Herod came to reign over Judea.
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But of course, from the beginning, the nation of Edom is a thorn in Israel's side.
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Remember in Exodus, when the nation of Israel is being led out by God, led out of Egypt, and they're looking to pass through Edom, and Edom refuses to let them pass.
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And they're discouraged as they head out into the wilderness. They're of short heart,
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I believe, is the Hebrew idiom. And ultimately, the nation of Edom is put under the dominion of Israel, under Saul, and then at its height under David as monarch.
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And then through the prophets, Edom is rebuked, in part because Edom celebrates when
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Assyria and Babylon begin to invade the land of promise and drag
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God's people out into exile. You can read Psalm 137, for example, where the
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Edomites are mocking and rebuking. And the psalmist is saying, don't forget, God, don't forget that they mocked us.
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Don't forget that they sang these songs when our foundations were being raised. You can read the prophetic rebukes,
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Jeremiah 49, Ezekiel 25. The whole book of Obadiah is a prophetic rebuke of the nation of Edom.
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Malachi 1, as we had it in Romans 9. Jacob, I've loved. Esau, that is,
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Edom, I have hated. And so we have this rivalry throughout scripture.
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We have it touched upon in verse 12. Tinma was the concubine of Eliphaz, Esau's son, and she bore
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Amalek to Eliphaz. There's no reason for Amalek to be mentioned here as far as progeny goes.
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He's not the direct progeny of Esau, but rather of Eliphaz. So why is Amalek included? Because of his role attacking
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Israel when they came out in Exodus 17. And if you've read 1
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Samuel 15, it's not forgotten even centuries later. We even get a sense of the rivalry between Edom and Israel in verse 31.
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Now, these were the kings who reigned in the land of Edom before any king reigned over the children of Israel.
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In other words, Israel, as the younger sibling, that younger nation that was always trying to catch up to the strength and the growth and the power of the elder brother,
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Israel had to walk by faith, trusting in God, laying a hold of the covenant promises that were yet unseen.
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Remember that the nation of Israel had been told they would dwell in a land that God would give to them, that Canaan would belong to them and would be theirs forever, would be a treasured possession, that kings would come forth from them and reign over the land.
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But when we're reading the genealogy of Esau, none of this has taken place. But look at the nation of Edom.
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Here's Esau in his land with kings and chiefs, with family and wealth and power and authority in a nation like Edom and running parallel tracks.
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Where is Israel? Huddling under the safety of Pharaoh, trying to get by through the famine.
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Most of the brothers in abject dependence upon the power of Egypt, then at one point at least imprisoned in Egypt and then wandering in the wilderness while the mighty nation of Edom says, you may not pass.
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Not to paraphrase Gandalf, thou shalt not pass. Now, if we were to judge the spiritual state of Esau and Jacob externally, who would you think
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God's blessing resided upon? Well, initially, most likely you would have said
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Esau. He's a man of the field, he's a go -getter, he's a self -starter, you know, he's serving his father, going out, taking the game in.
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He's the kind of son you would want. He's not this rather pathetic, imbecilic deceiver like Jacob.
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Surely God's blessing wouldn't rest upon him. When you look upon the spiritual state of the nation of Edom, as opposed to the spiritual state of the nation of Israel externally, that is by material blessings, who does it look like God's blessing is residing on?
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We look at Genesis 36 and we would have to say it almost looks like it's residing on Edom. They have all the power.
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They're actually walking in the promises, in a parody, they're walking in the promises that God said but hasn't given to Israel.
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They have land, they have power, they have kings, they have possession, they have influence.
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It is not so with Israel. And so when we look at the genealogy at one level, we learn to distinguish between earthly natural blessings as marks of God's favor and spiritual supernatural blessings as signs of God's favor.
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It is not necessarily a sign that one has come into a saving relationship with God just because they enjoy physical prosperity or physical health.
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In fact, rarely is that the case. You can be without earthly riches and yet be spiritually rich,
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James 2. You can be overflowing with wealth and be liable to hell,
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Luke 12. You can experience much physical suffering in this life because your hope is being pitched toward unimaginable glory to come, 2
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Corinthians 4. Or you can be healthy and comfortable and everything seems to go well with you and you truly are blessed.
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And yet your foot is slipping, it will drag you all the way down to Sheol, Psalm 73. See, these external things are not signs of God's blessing in a salvific way.
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And yet we cannot deny that Esau has received tangible blessings from God, according to Isaac's blessing in Genesis 27.
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And we have it confirmed in Hebrews 11 20. Isaac, by faith, blessed both of his sons, both
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Jacob and Esau, and Esau was blessed. And Genesis 36 records the blessing of God upon Esau.
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Now, it begs the question, and I borrow these questions from John Murray, the great
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Scottish theologian, I only ever mentioned that they're Scottish, John Murray, the great Scottish theologian at Westminster Seminary a generation ago, two generations ago.
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In an essay from his collected writings, I'm using these questions, applying them to Esau.
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They weren't originally applied to Esau. How is it that men who still lie under the wrath and curse of God and are heirs of hell enjoy so many good gifts at the hand of God?
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How is it that men who are not savingly renewed by the spirit of God nevertheless exhibit so many qualities, gifts and accomplishments that promote the preservation and happiness and cultural progress and social and economic improvement of themselves and of theirs?
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How is it that races and peoples that have been apparently untouched by the redemptive and regenerative influence of the gospel contribute so much to human civilization?
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To put the question most comprehensively, how is it that this sin -cursed world enjoys so much favor and kindness at the hand of a holy and ever -blessed creator?
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We can ask those questions of Esau in Genesis 36. How is it that the nation of Edom becomes so mighty, so influential, so well -off compared to the pitiful, pottering, plodding nation of Israel at the same time?
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And the answer, there's a few answers to this, but the first answer to those larger questions is found in two words, common grace.
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Common grace. What is common grace? At Lystra in Acts 14,
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Paul says that God did good by giving you rain from heaven, fruitful seasons, satisfying your heart with food and with gladness.
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Jesus says in Matthew 5 that God makes the sun to rise upon the evil and the good, sends rain on both the wicked and the just.
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The Father in Luke 6 is described as being kind even to the ungrateful and evil.
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That's an amazing thought, isn't it? The Father is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.
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Now, common grace is a technical term. This isn't something I made up. I don't think it's the first time we've discussed it, and hopefully this will just start clearing up and getting better clarity on what common grace is.
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Common grace is a technical term, and in Reformed theology, it's a debated term. Not all Reformed theologians agree that there is such a thing as common grace.
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Even those that agree there is squabble over how best to clarify and categorize it.
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Now, without getting into any of those debates, my position would be common grace is a biblical category.
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Common grace is something that we can understand in a systematic and theological way. When we say common grace, all we're doing is making a distinction between the general favor and blessing that God bestows upon all humanity in a universal, in the special saving grace that is completely toward his people, not toward all in the common, but uniquely toward his people.
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So we often have the distinction common grace as opposed to salvific grace, the grace which leads to salvation.
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Common grace applies earthly and temporal things to all rain, food, clothing, family, shelter, the dependability of seasons and physical laws in the universe.
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This is all the benefits that flow from the cross of Christ, I think we must say. For those who have ears to hear, we make a distinction between Roman Catholic theologians that depend on some sort of neutral ground for natural theology to create a common grace.
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We say no. All grace is blood -bought grace. But we recognize that common grace, though given to all, common grace falls short of the grace that is necessary to translate people from the domain of darkness into the kingdom of light.
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Whereas salvific grace applies salvation to one's soul using means, giving benefits, chiefly spiritual, chiefly eternal, and yet whatever they are, they're only for God's elect.
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And so it is common because it is universal toward all and it is grace because it is undeserved. This is not what all humanity deserves.
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They don't deserve food and rain, shelter, family, birds, songbirds that sing beautifully in the morning.
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This is not what fallen, rebellious humanity deserves. But God is kind to the ungrateful and God is kind to the evil.
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And we attribute that not to just some special narrow category in which we step outside of creation and have a unique relationship to God.
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Everything else just goes on as the great wound up clock of the deist. No, we say the whole world is flooded by the grace of God.
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He upholds everything by his mercy and his love, even for those who do not savingly know him.
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That's common grace. Let me give you a few definitions, a few working descriptions.
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Lorraine Bettner, a great theologian of a few generations ago, PNR used to publish, you know, 14, 15 of his books.
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Now you can only find them on eBay, but they're worth reading. Lorraine Bettner, God makes sun to shine on the evil and the good and sends the rain on the just and the unjust.
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These are the blessings of common grace, though they are designed primarily for the elect, right?
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It's for the sake of the elect. They're shared by all mankind. And since this world is not the final place of final reward, the place, but rather the place of discipline and testing and development for the
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Lord's people, these blessings are often enjoyed in greater abundance by the non -elect than by the elect.
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But in themselves, they are not sufficient to bring a single soul to salvation. The kindness that is meant by God to lead men to repentance is spurned by man.
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Unless God shows saving grace to their souls, John Bolt, more recent theologian, translator of Hermann Bavink's works, he says this.
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The doctrine of common grace is based on the conviction that prior to and to a certain extent, independent of the sovereignty of divine grace and redemption, there is a universal sovereignty in creation and providence that restrains the effects of sin and gives general gifts on all people.
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And thus it makes human society and culture possible, even among the unredeemed, we could say, even among the nation of Edom.
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Abraham Kuyper, the Dutch prime minister, a wonderful theologian. He defines common grace as the act of God by which negatively he curbs the operations of Satan, death and sin, and positively he creates an intermediate state for the world as well as for the human race, which is and continues to be deeply and radically sinful, but in which sin cannot work out its ends.
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Do you see? Despite man's sinfulness, God restrains the sin so that his purposes of creation can continue so that his purpose of redemption can continue.
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So common grace exists for the sake of salvific grace. In that sense, the whole world is a bloodbought world and every breath and every beauty and every glory and every comfort is a bloodbought grace.
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Let me give you one more, and this is short. It's to the point, which is great. John Frame, systematic theologian from RTS, common grace is
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God's favor and gifts given to those who will not finally be saved.
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It's a great definition. Common grace is God's favor and gifts given to those who will not finally be saved.
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Notice in Genesis 36, and we've seen it elsewhere, notice that the Bible does not deny that unbelieving people can be immensely gifted, skilled, brilliant, sophisticated, technologically savvy, and in a narrow sort of horizontal sense, admirable, admirable.
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You can admire these Edomites in a certain way, that we can admire the lost movers and shakers, the technology developers and engineers of our own day.
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There's a certain way in which it's admirable what they're capable of doing. The Bible's not embarrassed to acknowledge that, to somehow claim that only believing image bearers have that capacity to use the creativity and giftedness of their
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God -given domain. Of course not. Every image bearer of God has these innate capacities and is encouraged to bring them to bear in the earth.
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And yet we see that those unbelieving image bearers are an act of rebellion, and often they're using that ingenuity and skill against the purposes of God and against creation.
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A case in point would be how we can get so technologically and medically advanced and yet use that technology to destroy little embryos.
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There was an op -ed, I just read this in the wee hours of the morning, an op -ed that's coming out of New York Times.
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I can't remember the name, he was a missionary doctor, and it was a wonderful piece. I don't know that I would have stated everything the way he stated it, but he was very bold in his
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Christian faith. And he basically was raised in a Christian home, and he became a surgeon,
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I believe, in parts of Sudan, and was basically a missionary doctor. He talked about his pro -life convictions and all of the familiar talking points we might have on that.
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But then he talked about this dilemma that he had to face when a young mother was hemorrhaging, was on the brink of death, and he knew the only way to save her was to terminate that life.
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And he was still wrestling with that throughout the whole piece. He never thought that in this work he did to try to spread the gospel and heal in the way that Jesus healed, and to seek body and soul to be light to the world, he never thought he'd have to face a moral dilemma quite like that.
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What I loved about it was just the way he ended, which was the hope of the resurrection. And all he said was, my only hope is in the resurrection of Christ and all that that means, and he spelled it out.
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That's exactly the kind of gospel that has to be preached to the babble builders of our day, to the Edomites who use their technology and their skill against the purpose of God.
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We don't for a moment deny the gifts, the abilities, the competencies of the
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Edomites or of any unbelieving people. We're able to sit back and admire the leaders and the fighters and the protectors and the earthshakers.
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But all along in Genesis, from the very beginning, we've seen the divide between the sons of God and the
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Cainites, or the seed of the serpent and the seed of promise. And whatever manifestation may show, there's always this clear divide between those who are walking in the purpose and ways of God and those who are actively resisting it, seeking to undermine and usurp it.
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Cain had a very different worldview than Abel. Lamech had a very different worldview than Seth.
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Ishmael had a very different worldview than Isaac. And Esau, as we see, has a very different worldview than Jacob.
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Every one in this world, every human being that breathes this air belongs to one or the other.
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There is no neutrality. There is no in -between. There is no via media. There is no third way.
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And that's what we see in Genesis 36 in comparison to Genesis 37.
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That's what we've seen from the very beginning of Genesis. Every human being in the world ultimately belongs to one line or the other, to one people or the other, to one master or the other, to one future or the other.
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Everyone in the world ultimately will either be redeemed and renewed and made to live in an
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Eden -like presence of God or will persist in their rebellion and ultimately be cast away from his presence eternally.
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And there is no in -between. It may surprise us, frankly, it may surprise us how many people we thought were in that line with us as fellow
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Israelites that were never part of us. We have so many similar values, so many similar thoughts and concerns, so many motives and impetus that drives us.
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We might actually be surprised, shocked. We thought they were with us. We thought they were in the line of promise.
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We didn't realize they were Edomites. And we might, by the same measure, be shocked at who's in the line of the
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Israelites. How could you be one of us? How could you truly be one of us? That dividing line is so steep, so sharp, so paradoxical.
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No wonder Jesus could say in Matthew 7, there will be so many who cry out to me on that day. So many.
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And what is the response? I never knew you. I never knew you. Your name was not in my genealogy.
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Your name was not written in my book. Robert Braeburn puts this so well.
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It is the dream of the world to unite all people into one kingdom. We see that today, don't we?
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Globalism as resurgent as ever. It's like a throwback to the Babel builders in Genesis 11.
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The world's dream is to unite all people into one kingdom, one family, refusing to acknowledge the antithesis between these two groups of people, the serpent seed and the seed of promise.
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The Bible, on the contrary, is forever reminding us of it. It will not let us forget that God's plan for humanity is not one indiscriminate group, but sheep separated from goats, wheat separated from tares.
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The Bible is ultimately dualistic in the destiny of man. That's unavoidable. There will be those that enter at the right hand of the father and those that are cast aside by the left.
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There is a dividing line that runs between every man, woman and child. Every human being must choose whose side he is on.
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And so we see God's common grace upon Esau, but we see that common grace is not enough.
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Common grace is not enough. We come to Genesis 36, which may have read like a triumphant roll of accomplishment to Esau's ears.
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What did my boys do? Oh, yeah. That's the Edomite way. It certainly reads like a list of accomplishments to worldly ears.
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Wow. I think I'd rather live in Edom than, you know, in a pit in Egypt. I think
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I'd rather be a chief than a house slave. We come to Genesis 36 and we know the world looks at that as something triumphant.
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As Christians, we read it tragically. We read it tragically because for us, it's not a history of accomplishment.
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It's a history of denying the faith. And straying from the path and repudiating the witness and testimony of a father and of a grandfather.
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It's a history of Esau backsliding as he seeks his own desires. And though he accomplishes much in the world, it all perishes away as his own soul perishes.
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It's a tragic chapter in Genesis. It's tragic because Esau shows no desire for the life of God.
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He certainly shows no hope for the promise of God. He marries Canaanite wives, much to the frustration and vexation of his parents.
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He leaves Canaan. He has no interest to dwell under the tutelage of his father. He has no fear of God.
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He has no love for God. The Edomites listed here are in earthly terms, very impressive people.
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They received God's common grace in abundance. But common grace is not enough.
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Their lives are defined by their ignorance of God. What a horrific statement to have, that your life could be defined by your ignorance of God.
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That your life is lived out primarily in ignorance of God. Esau did not choose the path of the righteous.
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Psalm 1, he chose the path of the wicked. Even Psalm 1, even before you get to the praises and laments of the
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Psalms, you're just setting it out. Reminder, friendly PSA announcement, there's only two groups, two ways, two destinies.
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Esau and all those that follow after Esau, all our modern day Edomites, they embody the philosophy of Frank Sinatra in his song,
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My Way. This is something that Esau would have on his tombstone. I've lived a life that's full.
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I've traveled each and every highway and more, much more. I did it my way.
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I planned each charted course, each careful step along the byway and more, much, much more.
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I did it. I did it my way. That is the anthem of Edom.
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That is the anthem of fallen man. That is the anthem of every person who chooses a way that seems right to them, but its end therein leads to death.
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I did it my way. Well, at least I'm doing it my way. At least I'm living on my terms. The attitude of my way will never lead you to forsake the city and the wealth and the power and the prestige to follow through on the ambition and all that it can bring you in a temporal way.
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The attitude of my way will never cause you to dwell in the vulnerable modesty of a tent, waiting for a land you've been promised, yet do not possess.
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Oh, that's not my way. That's God's way. That's God's way to live in a vulnerable dependence upon him, looking for the surety of things yet unseen, yet unpossessed.
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That's God's way. Esau's way, the Edomite way, my way, my terms, my power, my ambition.
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Believers, as the Israel of God, we recognize that believers have always lived surrounded by the
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Edomites. We look at the Edomites in whatever form they take and we see they progress so rapidly.
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Why we can't even break out of our father's tent and he's already got a kingdom, multiple chiefs, and we're just squabbling among brothers?
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I wish we could take possession like that. I wish we could dominate so effortlessly. We're used to that as believers.
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We look at the godless world around us, godless culture and godless society. And we see it progress so rapidly, dominate so effortlessly.
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We see the hostile repudiation of God staining everything that they build and say and think and do.
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The German commentator Franz Delitzsch, he says, secular greatness in general grows far more rapidly than spiritual greatness.
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Didn't we see that with the Cainites? Right? It was not the sons of God who were mastering engineering and music and all manner of arts and building.
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It was the Cainites. It's as though the lowercase g,
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God of this world, just puts all the efforts of fallen hostile man on the fast track.
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You know, things are built majestically, perfectly, ahead of schedule, always, effortlessly. And Christians are involved in the big dig.
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Well, it's going to be another five years and another five million and another delay. And now we've got this and we didn't realize this was going to happen.
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And it can be discouraging to us. It can be disheartening because we recognize that God is reigning and there's a whole purpose for his kingdom's advance.
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So then why are we frustrated and fumbling at the very start when the enemies of God are prospering and advanced and blessed and all that they do?
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Well, as a Christian, you cannot explain that reality, that fact, apart from this divide and how it weeds those who are walking by faith from those who are walking by the flesh.
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Those who are walking according to their way and their power, their stamp upon the world and those who are doing it
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God's way. Not perfectly, as we've seen, but in humility and in sincerity, seeking to follow the way of God.
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This is the difference between Edom and Israel. And so Genesis 36, we're not just looking at Edom and Israel as two nations from Rebekah's womb.
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We're ultimately looking at it even beyond that theologically to say this is the difference between the kingdom of this world and the kingdom of God, between the city of fallen man and the city whose builder and maker is
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God. Already, right at the beginning of human history, right after the fall of Genesis 3, we find man trying to build a city in contrast to men who by faith are calling out upon the
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Lord, waiting for His city to come to them. And the story of Genesis is the story of human history.
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It's the story of civilization of which we are currently a part. As it unfolds, it's primarily a story of God calling a people that are rebellious and fallen in their hearts out of their depravity, out of their darkness, into His light to be
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His very own special possession, bearing with those people patiently in a long -suffering and gentle way, leading them through the trials and hilltops of their lives, using them in the very midst of those trials and hilltops to be a light to the nations, a light to the generations so that the day will come when finally and fully
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God's people as a whole will be regathered to His presence in the very paradise that they had been driven from by their sin.
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Genesis is human history, and we live alongside the parody of God's kingdom as we live alongside the
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Edomites around us today, born in rebellion against God just like us, formerly marked by violence and pride, by lust and foolishness and futility just like us, walking in the blindness of their ambition, walking in the blindness of their worldly and earthly hopes just like us.
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And they built their towers of Babel, but God always frustrates their purposes in the end, and unlike us, they're never made to hear
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His voice. Their heart of stones never cast out.
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They're not given a heart of flesh. They're not given ears that they may hear, eyes that they may see.
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They're not given a tongue that they may praise or knees that they may bow. That's the difference.
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That's the difference between Edom and Israel. It's the difference between common grace and salvific grace.
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The warning, the banner is common grace is not enough. God, not the
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Edomite chieftains, is writing history according to His perfect providence. You know, we read this, we're comparing the prosperity of Edom, which seems to bloom on the earth effortlessly, and then this struggle of Israel to hold on to the promise of God.
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We see Esau, like always, more mighty than Jacob. And at the end of their lives, as we said,
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Jacob is dependent upon Pharaoh. He doesn't have a nation and kings like his elder brother. And by Moses' day, his nation is just a nation of slaves.
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What kind of progeny is that? What kind of power and influence do they have?
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And we as Christians, we look at the Edomites of our day and we say, what can we do? What good is it to walk in this covenant?
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What hope do I have for the next generation or the generation to come? What difference could I possibly make?
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We feel a lot like Jacob and his sons must have felt under the shadow of Edom, but we're reminded that God is the one who's writing history, not the
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Edomite chieftains. History doesn't end with Genesis 36. And the mockery, the great irony, is that today these names mean almost nothing to us.
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You know, I don't hold it against you if you just flip the page. Sorry, Esau, not worth my time. God was doing better things, different things through your younger brother.
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The once famous names of Genesis 36 that may have caused men's hearts to melt like wax in their day, they don't mean anything to us today.
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But the names that meant nothing in those days, household slaves, they mean everything to us today.
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They're part of the lineage of God's perfect work of redemption. Edomite chieftains that surround us today,
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Babel builders that surround us today, they won't mean anything tomorrow. But there's a legacy that's before each one of us as believers.
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Though we feel outgunned, outmaneuvered, outmanned, pressed down in every way, we know who's writing history.
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We can look beyond the divide of humanity, beyond the in and out of Christ, beyond the nations that come from them, and we can just, we'll close by just looking at the difference between Esau and Jacob.
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As we said, Esau was a go -getter, a man's man, a warrior king. You know,
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Esau would have played well in this book that some of us are reading. It's good to be a man. Esau would have been a great illustration for a lot of that.
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There's a lot of good manly qualities about Esau. The problem was that he lived on his own terms.
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Sinatra, I was reading this description about Sinatra, I had to look up the lyrics. And this is the summary
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I read. Sinatra's My Way represents the quintessentially American outlook. Quintessentially American outlook, that nothing in life matters more than living on your own terms.
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Quintessentially American outlook, that nothing in life matters more than living on your own terms.
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You might do well with common grace, living on your own terms, but common grace is not enough.
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The emphasis of chapter 36 falls on the might and the influence of Edom, and we're reminded that the man
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Esau, from the very beginning, that's all he ever wanted. I don't care about this birthright.
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I don't care about these empty promises. These things are vain to me. How much do they mean to me? I'll trade it for soup.
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He despised his birthright. He wanted to take possession. He wanted to bear fruit and multiply.
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From the Canaanite women, in the mountains of Seir, he wanted wealth. He wanted land. He wanted authority.
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He wanted status. He wanted influence. And you know what? That is exactly what God gave to him.
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But how does Isaac die? And how does Jacob die? Esau wanted earthly blessings and he got earthly blessings in full.
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And it was the ruin of his soul that God gave him all that he wanted. Esau found common grace, but common grace is not enough.
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However successful and prominent he felt in his day, he's ultimately excluded from God's saving covenant.
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Scripture says he was a profane man, and that's in contrast to the gallery of the faithful in Hebrews 11.
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And so we could almost ask Esau what the Lord Jesus would ask any of us today. He's asking you today, from Mark 8, verse 36, what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his own soul?
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And what would you give in exchange for your soul? Esau, what has it profited you that you gained the whole of Edom, the whole of the mountains of Seir?
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What has it profited you at the expense of your own soul? And what have you gained now that you would give in exchange for your immortal, undying soul?
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One thing that stands out to us, I forget who pointed this out, it might have been Jacob Sarnam. In verse 1 and verse 8, and there might be a reason why it's repeated which we won't go into here, but we have this phrase,
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Esau who is Edom, and again, Esau is Edom. And we recognize that Esau the man is being placed over Edom the nation.
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Of course, Edom was another name for Esau, meaning red or ruddy in complexion because of the way that he was born.
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But of course, it's also wordplay on the soup. If you remember when Jacob made that stew for him, he sort of in a
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Neanderthalic way said, give me that red stuff. I want the red stuff. And it was a wordplay on his name.
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And so even with Edom, we have this eternal association of Esau with the baseless, despising view he had for God's covenant.
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Esau is Edom, Esau is red stuff, Esau is after the God of his belly.
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So what would he answer if he had to answer in truth to the Lord's question? What would Esau give for his soul?
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Red stuff, red stuff. What do you have that is a good trade for you?
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Do you have anything that even comes close? Is there anything you could conceive of gaining in this life that would be a worthy trade?
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You know, we're well past the 09 Dodge Caravan with 144 ,000 miles. We're well past the shoebox with baseball cards, including mint condition
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Nolan Ryans. What prize possession do you have that could even come close?
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And yet, if you don't have eyes to see it, the covenant promise of God and the hope of eternal salvation are as despicable to you as a meal.
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That's the difference between common grace and salvific grace. Arkent Hughes says,
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Esau was so accustomed to yielding to his appetite, the concept of delayed gratification had no place in his mind.
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He lived for what was before him. Are you living for what's before you?
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What makes us think that we're doing something more than just running on the fumes and hopes of common grace?
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What makes us sure, with assurance from God's Spirit, that we're not operating under common grace but that we have a saving relationship to God through Christ?
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It is entirely possible to sit under the influence of God's Word, as Esau would have for most of his young life, with the testimony of Abraham and the testimony of Isaac, from the time they rose to the time they lay down at the family altar when they worshiped
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God, when they heard the wonderful deeds that God had done, the miraculous ways that God had moved.
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Esau sat under that day after day, week after week. It's entirely possible to sit under the influence of God's Word, as Esau did, to sit in fellowship with believers of God's Word, as Esau did, to enjoy earthly blessing and earthly gain, as Esau did, to even give
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God credit for that. You can experience all of that in common grace, and common grace is not enough.
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God forbid we raise a generation of Edomites to descend from the church.
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God forbid souls are not won to a saving relationship, a saving knowledge of Christ, but rather the joys and privileges of having a home in order and fruitfulness in some earthly, temporal way becomes all that our children desire.
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And they're no longer operating by faith, but by sight, by their Instagram posts of how well -ordered and well -polished their family is.
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That is not the way that Jacob lives. That's the way that Esau lives. Do you see?
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It is entirely possible to live as a Christian, giving God the glory, and never know more than common grace, and common grace is not enough.
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Do you need a testimony of this? Just look at Jacob. Jacob is what he is, not because of God's common grace, but because of God's saving grace.
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The twister, the usurper, the deceiver, for him common grace would have never been enough.
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He would have been like his Uncle Laban, just looking to get the next jewel, the next stretch, the next labor.
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Jacob needed to be reborn. Jacob needed to be remade. Jacob needed to strive with God.
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Jacob needed to be saved. Common grace is not enough. Listen, there is no salvation in the earthly kindness of God.
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There is no salvation in the earthly kindness of God. That kindness is designed to lead you to repentance, because only by repentance in faith is the way of salvation opened unto you, which is exclusively through Jesus Christ.
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And though all God's benefits, all His good gifts descend from heaven above through the flowing blood of the cross, common grace is not enough.
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This is a warning for all modern day Edomites. The people are grass, their glory is like the flower that fades.
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The grass withers, the flower fades, the word of the Lord endures forever. As 1 John puts it, the world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.
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And so we, as believers, we can never forget this. We can never forget that there are only two ways to live, ultimately only two groups to belong to.
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You cannot straddle, you cannot pretend to be the one exception in God's universe.
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We can never forget we must be careful to live as children of God, being marked not because despite our ungratefulness
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God is kind to us, but rather being marked by our gratefulness, gratefulness beyond words, because we know it's not just the common grace that's undeserved, but in some unimaginable way
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He actually sent His Son to die for us, that we might be with Him.
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And this was of His doing and not of us. We must never forget this.
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We must be careful to live as children of God, not as the Edomites. And if I can paraphrase
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Luther, though this world with Edomites is filled and it should threaten to unnerve us, we should not be downcast for God has willed
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His promise to triumph through us. We're surrounded by Edomites, just as Jacob was under their shadow, and yet where was the promise and purpose of God residing?
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Where was His blessing ultimately being planted so that it might blossom for millennia to come?
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These are the days of fulfillment. In a world with many
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Esau's brothers and sisters, God has opened our eyes. He's unstopped our ears, softened our hearts.
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Out of all of the people of this world, so many much more clever than we are, much more gifted than we are, at times even more virtuous than we are.
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We among them, we have been numbered with Jacob. We among them have been brought near to God through Jesus Christ our
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Lord, and we among them must dwell patiently by faith awaiting our inheritance so that we can join that eternal song.
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Why was I made to hear thy voice and enter while there's room when thousands make a wretched choice and rather starve than come?
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Who are you numbered with? Common grace is not enough. Let's pray.
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Father, we thank you for your word. Lord, we thank you for the testimony we have even in a list of names.
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We have a testimony of your perfect plan of redemption, a testimony of that divide between the serpent and your son, that great gospel promise of Genesis 315 which runs the whole span of human history, and it forces us,
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Lord, to be divided. By your spirit, we pray, Lord, you would convict and use your kindness to bring us to repentance that we might be brought near to you for those in this room,
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Lord, whether young or old, that have been straddling or at least pretending they can to think they're somehow in a neutral no -man's land and they haven't, don't have yet to make that decision, nor is there any pressure to,
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Lord, awaken them to the danger they're in. Help them to see Esau in the mirror of their lives.
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Convict them, Lord, that they might be saved. Do the work that only you can do sovereignly, that you would receive all the glory.
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Help us as believers to live as children of God with gratefulness. Tune our hearts to sing your praise when we consider these things,
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Lord. Help us to lose our desire and affections for the
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Edomites around us, lest we fall into their snares, lest we stumble into the pits they've dug.
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Let us live as the seed of Jacob. These things we ask in your Son's name, Amen.
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Well, now's our time for interaction. Brother.
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It was interesting to consider because in a sense, it's really about priorities, right?
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Selvific grace gives us different priorities, priorities we'd never choose for ourselves. And by that very nature of having different priorities,
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Christians are going to look different in the world, or should, because we are going to spend our money differently.
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We are going to give percentages of our money that unbelievers will not.
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We are going to have hopefully more priority placed in relationships and relationship building, whether it's with our spouses or whether it's with our children or extended families or even the stranger who most would walk by on the street, we would stop and try and strike up a conversation, you know,
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Lord willing. And we're going to spend our time doing those sorts of things, which are going to slow us down just enough behind those people who are single -mindedly pursuing the goals that they have for themselves and their lives.
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So not that the Lord would never raise up a Christian billionaire, but there shouldn't be many of them, right?
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Not that the Lord won't raise up a Christian business and it could be a great business, but it's not going to be the premier business because that Christian business, if it's being run to the
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Lordship of Christ, is the people who run it are still going to have different priorities that are going to mean you're going to fall behind that other business that is single -mindedly focused at being the best.
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And even though they may achieve their worldly goals and have greatness in this world to your point, it's all fading away, you know, it's all meaningless.
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And in a couple of generations, that business will be gone just like the Christian business would be gone too.
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But that Christian business built a legacy in the way in which it dealt with people in the way in which it glorified
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God. And God will ensure that those things are remembered. Amen.
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You know, we inhabit the carcass of the Cainites. All their fretting, all their boasted pomp and show, as Isaac Watts would say, that's part of what we inherit.
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And so, there's an amazing reversal of fortune.
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As with any warfare, to the victor goes the plunder, and that's no different in terms of the conquest of Christ's kingdom.
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And we will plunder the strongman's house, and I think that's not just figurative language,
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I think that's literal. So watching this little 60 -minute segment on the
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Miller family, it was like, wow, here are these people that were in the slaves' quarters, you know, working, toiling it out under the oppression of, you know, the
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Miller family, if they were oppressive, I don't know, they could have been wonderful. But the day comes when they actually inherit the home, and they're free.
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And they enjoy all the labors and, you know, funding and, you know, generational wealth that kept up that residence.
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That to me is a good little example of our inheritance as Christians. That which we await.
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We labor and toil under the shadow of Edom, and yet the day is fixed when we will plunder all that Edom has to offer.
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So to dwell on these things in that way, it ought to make us more willing, more sacrificial in delayed gratification, to say we don't need to seek the good things in this life now because we will inherit the good things in a sinless, perfect way if we walk by faith and not by sight.
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And you get right back down to if you're seeking to save your life, you will lose it. But if you're willing to lose your life, you'll save it.
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That is the paradox of the Christian life according to Jesus. Great message, by the way.
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A couple things. One is when I was praying, I was thinking about the prosperity gospel that's being preached out there.
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And if that isn't a bunch of Edomites, I don't know what is. They're all going for God's going to give you this, and he's going to give you that, and he's going to make you wealthy, and he's going to make you healthy, and it's not so.
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My wife and I have been reading the Bible in one year, and we just read Ezra, and this is sort of a parallel that I never caught before the few times
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I've read it about how there was all this opposition by the governors across the river against the rebuilding, and they were complaining, and they were writing letters to the king.
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So what ends up happening is the king finds out that Cyrus gave the decree to rebuild the temple. So he goes back, and he says, not only are you not going to stop them, but you're going to pay for all the materials.
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So I thought that was hysterical when I read that. Amen. Thank you,
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Ross. I think you did everything but say it in terms of our
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Christian homes and our families, right? I just want to push through again this idea that there is a lot of common grace in these
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Christian homes in this body. Look, there's a lot of sin as well, and repentance, which repentance is watching people repent as part of God's common grace in your life as well.
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Don't be fooled, right? There are many Christian homes that raise their kids well, and many kids are raised by Christian parents.
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And we talked about this last night as a family. Be careful that you would be able to discern the difference between God's common grace in your life and God working salvificly in your life, because the two have, as you said, very different outcomes, right?
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One looks good, can prosper, can have a good marriage, own things, have a lot of money, right?
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Be respected in the community, but it has no conversion, right?
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It has no repentance. It has no faith like the
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Bible talks about faith, not like the world does, right? And so that means there's no resting in Jesus Christ.
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And we speak to the children here that look, what
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Ross has preached this morning is really important in your life. It's important in all of our lives. But I think you can easily be fooled depending on where you're being raised.
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You can easily be fooled in a Christian home. I know the parents here are, you know, trying to distinguish between the two and talk to their kids that way, but just be careful.
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You need to be converted. You need to see your sin and say,
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I see the dirt and the filth of it and the separation from a holy and perfect God, not just kind of submitting to what your parents want in your home.
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And you need to desire those things and repent. And so, you know, it's important.
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Dan asked for prayer for our family members, right? You know, this is important in our homes.
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This distinguishes, you know, what's different between common grace and salvific grace is really important in all of our lives.